CHAPTER XXV
1881-1882
Speech at University College, London. Prize Fellowships. Deaths of Carlyle, Stanley, and other friends. Visit to the Hartz and Dessau. Oriental Congress at Berlin. Paris. Speech at French Institute. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Lectures at Cambridge on India. Death of Dr, Pusey. National Anthem in Sanskrit.
The whole of this year was one of strenuous work to Max Muller, He had undertaken to make a translation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, in honour of the centenary of its first publication; he was retranslating Buddha's Dhammapada or Path of Virtue, from the Pali; and he prepared with his Buddhist pupils one of the texts from Japan which was published in the Aryan series of the Anecdota Oxoniensia, the starting of which undertaking was mainly due to Max Muller’s initiative. In addition to this, the editing of the Sacred Books of the East was continuous work, involving the reading, and sometimes correcting, of innumerable proof-sheets, besides constant correspondence with scholars offering to take part in the great work, or with others who were dilatory in fulfilling their contracts. As Max Muller was suffering the whole year from what threatened to become scrivener s palsy, he had to dictate almost everything, whether letters or books. Happily, rest and careful treatment warded off the complaint, and he never had any return of it after this year.
To Miss Collet.
January 23.
'I have always admitted that Keshub Chunder Sen has been weak, though I could show you that, after the first step had been taken, he was more helpless than weak. I do not believe that the Hindus do not care for truth; on the contrary, if left to themselves, I believe (with Col. Sleeman) that they are more truthful than any other nation. Their whole literature from beginning to end is pervaded by reverence for truth. From what I know of Keshub Chunder Sen, I should never suspect him of an untruth.'
In another letter to Miss Collet, Max Muller writes: —
‘Yet I have felt that in spite of many whirlpools, eddies, and water- falls, the main stream was flowing on in the right direction, and that really good work is being done in India, both by Keshub Chunder Sen and by his opponents.'
To the end Max Muller preserved his faith in Keshub Chunder Sen, and did all he could to uphold him and his work against the attacks made on him in India and England.
'Two points only seemed to me of real importance in the teaching of his last years: first, the striving after a universal religion, and the recognition of a common substance in all religions; secondly, the more open recognition of the historical superiority of Christianity as compared with more ancient forms of faith. Keshub Chunder Sen rejoiced in the discovery that, from the first, all religions were but varying forms of one great truth. This was his pearl of great price. To him it changed the whole aspect of the world, and gave a new meaning to his life. That the principle of historical growth or natural evolution applied to religion also, as I had tried to prove in my books on the Science of Religion, was to him the solution of keenly-felt difficulties, a real solace in his own perplexities.'
There is little doubt that it was Keshub Chunder Sen's strong leaning towards Christianity, in which he was before his time, which annoyed the Rationalists in India, and called forth some of the attacks made on him in England.
In the spring of this year Max Muller was asked if he would join ‘The Club’ if there were a vacancy: ‘the most distinguished dining-club in this country/ wrote one of the members; ‘it consists of the primates in politics, literature, art, and science.' Max Muller was very much gratified at the wish expressed, but he felt, delightful as it would be, the effort of going to London to attend the ten dinners each session of Parliament would hinder his work too much, and he most reluctantly refused the intended honour.
In February Max Muller attended a great dinner at University College, London, on the occasion of the opening of the north wing, just added to the buildings. Lord Kimberley, as President of the College, was in the chair. It was a large and noble gathering, and among the speakers were Lord Sherbrooke, Professors Henry Smith, Roscoe, and Huxley, Sir F. Leighton, Sir John Lubbock, Sir G. Jessel, and the President of the Royal Society. The toast of the British Universities was proposed by Professor Tyndall, to which Max Muller replied. After assuring his hearers that the majority of people at Oxford had no feelings but those of sincere rejoicing at the rise and growth of what he might call the young Universities, the Universities of the future, he went on to explain a scheme that was then much in his thoughts, for throwing open the 150 Fellowships left in Oxford, after pro- viding for all the wants of tutorial and professorial teaching, to the whole of England. The scheme is fully explained in a paper, extracts from which are given below, which he sent up in March to Professor Tyndall, asking if any of his scientific friends would sign it It had not, as yet, been shown to any one. The paper is interesting as a scheme that, if carried out, might have put England on a par with France and Germany in the encouragement of scientific and literary research.
'We, the undersigned, beg to submit to the Commissioners of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge that it would most effectually serve for the promotion of learning, if the so-called Prize Fellowships were thrown open to general competition. It may be desirable to confine other Fellowships, to which tutorial and other College duties are attached, to persons familiar with the spirit of the two Universities, but with regard to Prize Fellowships there seems to be no reason why the field of competition should be limited to candidates brought up at Oxford and Cambridge. The wider the field, the greater would be the value attached to these Fellowships, and the greater also the gain for the two Universities in attracting towards themselves the best talent of the whole country.
'The undersigned would likewise suggest to the Commissioners that these Prize Fellowships should not in future be bestowed without some definite duties being attached to them, and that, as a rule, they should not be tenable for more than five years....
'Holders of Prize Fellowships, if they have done good work during the first five years, should know that they may receive a second Fellowship in addition to the first, both tenable again for five years, and that after ten years, if they have produced some valuable work, and wish to devote themselves entirely to the prosecution of scientific studies, they may look forward to a third Fellowship, and become Professors in the University, under regulations similar to those now proposed by the University Commissioners.
‘By thus concentrating the resources which the two Universities possess in their Prize Fellowships (representing, after all deductions are made, an annual sum of about £100,000), the Commissioners might make these Fellowships not only a reward for work done by school-boys and undergraduates, but an incentive to new work. A recognized career would thus be opened to young men of talent, wishing to devote themselves to the prosecution of independent investigations, and to the advancement of sound learning, who, under present circumstances, have either to face years of uncertain adventure, or accept employment detrimental to the scientific character of their work. And the Universities would more truly fulfil their double function of transmitting and enlarging knowledge, by training a class of students really qualified to fill professorial Chairs, and to maintain in the future the high position of English scholarship and learning.'
To Professor Tyndall.
Oxford, March 16.
‘I may have made in the paper I sent you the same mistake which I find I made in some others. The sum I want to secure to science is not £10,000 a year, but £100,000 a year. We may put down the Prize Fellowships in each University as at least 150 — that leaves a large margin for tutorial and professorial Fellowships.
‘300 to 400 Fellowships, each of about £300 a year, gives about £100,000. Is not this worth an effort?’
Professor Tyndall was much interested in Max Muller’s scheme, and, though himself ill from overwork, wrote that he thought the statement admirable, and would send it on to those likely to be interested in the subject, whilst he himself would gladly sign it, A few days later Professor Tyndall wrote again: ‘I have set your scheme afoot, and I think you will not lack backers.’
To The Same.
March 26.
‘I was very sorry to hear of your being pulled down. This won’t do. Who is to fight, if you give in? I shall get little, if any, support for my proposal here at Oxford. Some people think it high treason. I believe, on the contrary, like many kinds of high treason, it would be a blessing to Oxford, and open a future to English science such as we can hardly imagine as yet. You hardly know what a Crypto- Anglicist I am, and how firmly I believe in the future of England. But really English genius has had no chance, and it is a perfect marvel to me when I see what it has achieved, even when dancing in chains. The waste of power here at Oxford is fearful. I have known dozens of young men who might have done any amount of solid scientific work, and who dwindle away into judges or bishops. What I want is not only a carriere ouverte [Google translate: open career], but a carriere assuree [Google translate: assured career] for students and scholars. 1 am afraid we shall not carry this proposal now, but even to have mooted it may do some good hereafter.'
Carlyle had died in the February of this year, and the statue referred to in the following letter was to him. The statue now stands on the Chelsea Embankment, near to Cheyne Row, where Carlyle lived, and is a sitting life-size figure in bronze.
To Professor Tyndall.
Oxford, May 4.
‘Well done, royally done! taking royally in its etymological meaning — rex being a leader, a straightforward director, the leader of a forlorn hope, the right man, when right (rectum) has to be vindicated! Really, when one hears people talk about Carlyle and Disraeli, all landmarks of right and wrong seem to have vanished.
‘I have no misgivings about the statue, though the price charged seems rather high. I also should prefer bronze to marble in this climate.
‘Froude will be glad to serve on the Committee: he is sure to exert himself. Lowell will help and contribute. We shall have a small committee here, but we want printed papers, &c. The fire must be stirred in the central place.'
To His Son.
May 16, 1881.
‘“Becoming independent" is one thing, “becoming rich" another. Everybody ought to try hard to make himself independent, but then a man must learn to be independent with little, such as Carlyle was — one of the most independent and honest men I have ever known. Don’t forget that I took you once to see him — it is better than to have seen the Pyramids or Niagara.’
Max Muller had the strongest admiration for Carlyle. Soon after his death, he writes: —
‘Think of the simplicity and frugality of his life, the nobility of his heart, the sublimity of his purposes. I have known many good and great men. I have never known one so strong and straight, so sturdy and striking as Thomas Carlyle — strong and straight like a pyramid, a mystery to the common crowd of travellers, and certainly not to be measured in its width and breadth, in its height and depth, by the small pocket-rule of “common sense"!'
The translation of the Dhammapada, which formed Max Muller’s second contribution to the Sacred Books of the East, came out, as has been stated, this year, and seems to have been read by his old friend Mrs. Josephine Butler.
To Mrs. Butler.
Oxford, May 18.
‘Dear Mrs. Butler,— I am glad you appreciate Buddha, like myself. I feel I owe him much. As to a life, we shall never have that: we may know what his various disciples thought of him, but then a picture is never greater than the artist. We shall have to be satisfied with a few stones picked up here and there, and have to build up our own image. I shall send you some more of him, if you like. I expect Froude here in a few days: his son comes to matriculate at Oriel. I am not the least shaken in my belief in Carlyle: he was the greatest and truest man I have ever known, and- that will do for me. What a loss Sandwith is1 [Dr, Sandwith was one of the defenders of Kars in 1855, under General Williams.]! What would England be without its unknown worthies? He too sped through life straight as an arrow, and there are few left like him.’
The following letter shows how completely Max Muller devoted himself to his Buddhist pupils: —
To Mr. Nanjio.
Oxford, May 28.
‘I had a letter from Lord Granville to-day, informing me that the two MSS. of the Sukhavati-Vyuha would be sent to me from Paris through the English Ambassador. I expect they will arrive in about a week. Would it not be better now for you and me to stay at Oxford till we have finished the collation of these MSS.? It need not take much time, unless the text should be very different— which, however, I do not expect.
‘If we could finish this collation and the printing of the Bodleian Catalogue before going to Paris, it would be well to do so, I think. But tell me really what you like to do, and I shall then see how I can arrange my plans. Though our departure for Paris may be delayed now, yet I am as anxious as ever to go there, and afterwards to Germany, and to take care of you on the journey to Paris and Berlin.
‘What shall we put on the title-page?
“Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Books and Manuscripts, Prepared by Bunyiu Nanjio, Priest of the Monastery,... Japan'"?’
Just before Commemoration of this year a great sorrow came to Max Muller in the death of his friend Dr. Rolleston. Of all his friends in Oxford, he was the one with whom Max Muller was at this time the most entirely united, and till Dr. Rolleston's illness, which obliged him to leave Oxford for some months, only returning to die in a few days, they were constantly together. In their fearless love of truth, their power of affection, their buoyant natures, their powerful and intuitive grasp of any subject occupying their minds, they had much in common, and for years Max Muller felt the loss in his daily life. To escape Commemoration, for which he had no heart, he went to West Malvern, accompanied by his Japanese priests. It was on this visit that an incident occurred which Max Muller was fond of narrating. Coming home one evening along the ridge of the hills, they stood still to watch one of those glorious sunsets which are so often to be seen from the Malvern range. ‘The western sky was like a golden curtain, covering we know not what, when Kasawara said to me, “That is what we call the Eastern Gate of Sukhavati, the Land of Bliss.” He looked forward to it, and he trusted he should meet there all who had loved him, and whom he had loved, and that he should gaze on the Buddha Amitabha — the Infinite Light." A lady who heard Max Muller describe this scene, sent him the following lines: —
‘We walked and talked together, and before us
The golden glory of the sunset shone.
Then a great raptured silence brooded o'er us —
The glory glowed with gems — the orb was gone.
Then spoke my friend, with reverent voice and low,
‘‘Yonder! the wondrous Temple's eastern gate!
Within” (he eager gazed) “fain would I go,
Beyond those shining bars my fathers wait.”
I hung my head. My Christian eyes had seen
But a grand painting, crimson, green, and gold;
While he, a Buddhist—by my side — had been,
Through pearly doors, looking on Light untold.
And now, whene’er I see a glorious sunset sky,
I think — beyond that gate what splendid visions lie.’
To Professor Noire.
Translation. Malvern, 27, 1881.
'My dear Friend, — I have been here for more than a week, enjoying the beautiful fresh air of the Malvern Hills. I longed for rest, for blow after blow had come upon me lately through the deaths of my nearest friends and acquaintances. Bernays was an old friend of mine, of whom I saw much at the Bunsens’. His was a clear mind; he was a splendid Greek scholar, and he was faithfully attached to me. Then, after various other losses, came the death of Professor Rolleston, which was so tragical. You remember him, do you not, and his ethnological museum? He mentioned your name often.... Occurrences like his tragic death, and his wife’s sad state, are beyond our understanding — we cannot tackle it. It seems something must be out of order to produce such convulsions of life. And so we become poorer and poorer. To-day, again, I hear of the death of a Swiss friend, Fritz Kraus, whom you may remember as the translator of Shakespeare’s Sonnets — to me a dear friend. And all this is because we grow old, but we cannot help wondering why we ourselves have to remain so long imprisoned here. I try to work as much as I possibly can: that gives me an aim to live for. Kant is difficult, but interests me deeply.’
To B. Malabari, Esq.
June 31.
'I was grieved to hear of the death of your child. I know what it is — there are few who do not know that grief. Even in the Rig-veda there is a simple prayer, Let us die in order that the old may not weep for the young.” It is a great problem why it should be so, and yet nothing lifts us so much above the cares of this life as love for those who have gone before us, and who are nearer to our hearts now than they were when we could see them every day. To die young is a great blessing—that thought ought to comfort those who are left behind to mourn.’
To Mr. Nanjio.
Oxford, 28, 1881.
'I was glad to hear that you had arrived safely in Oxford, and I hope your stay at Malvern will have done you some good. I am very anxious that you should acquire a thorough knowledge of Sanskrit, and I am glad to see that you are both making good progress; but there is still much before you, and you will have to work hard. If I sometimes seem impatient, you ought to know that it really arises from my wish to see you get on. You asked me for the meaning of K. M.: it means Knight of the Order of Merit. I have received many orders and ribbons, but that is the one I value most; there are only twenty Knights and they elect themselves, they are not made through the favour of kings or Ministers, but after a Knight has been elected he receives his decoration from the Emperor of Germany. Carlyle, the great historian, who died this year, declined to accept the Grand Cross of the Bath from Lord Beaconsfield, but he accepted the Order pour le Merite, because it was given him by his peers. All these things no doubt are vanities, but they also produce some good, because scholars all over the world exert themselves to gain that distinction, and thus it encourages them in their work.’
Early in July Max Muller heard of the death of Professor Benfey, Sanskrit Professor at Gottingen, who only the year before had celebrated the Jubilee of his professorship. 'The death of Benfey was a great shock,’ he writes; *he was a wonderful worker.’ This was followed by the loss of another Oxford friend, the Librarian of the Bodleian, 'Bodley Coxe,’ as his friends loved to call him.
But a far deeper sorrow fell on Max Muller, the shadow from which long rested on him. On July 18 his loved and valued friend Arthur Stanley, Dean of Westminster, died after a very short illness. Max had known him from the time of his own arrival in Oxford in 1848, and had paid him several visits at Canterbury. They had become intimate friends during the years 1856 to 1863, when Stanley was Canon of Christ Church. His marriage and removal to Westminster made no change in their mutual affection. His wife, Lady Augusta, welcomed her husband’s friends in the heartiest manner, and the Deanery was a London home to the Max Mullers. 'One could speak to him unreservedly, almost thoughtlessly,’ Max writes. ‘One knew he believed all one said.... It was a treat to speak with him, and to find that he really took one for better than one was— it made one better.’ ‘I miss Stanley very much. He always remained true to one. After he had once trusted a man, he seldom dropped him again.'[/quote]
To Professor Noire.
Translation. Oxford, July 23.
'I cannot tell you how sad I feel— all strength and joy seems to have left me. How I wish I could have a good cry I Well, we have to pull ourselves together. If I only could get away! On August 6, I hope to go with my wife and children to the Hartz mountains, to meet my old mother, aged 81 ... On Monday I am going up to London for the funeral. I am afraid of it, but I did not want to miss it. The sympathy all over England is wonderful.'
It had long been settled that the summer should be spent in Germany with his old mother, and she fixed on the Hartz as the place where they would meet and spend the holidays together.
To Lady Welby.
August 2.
'I feel very weary. This year has taken away almost all my friends in England and in Germany, and I wonder why I am left. We must not let our friends die, and I trust Stanley will long live among us. I have never known a better man — his very weaknesses arising from the best motives.’
A list exists in Max Muller's writing with not less than twenty-five names of friends who had passed away this year in England and Germany.
The time in the Hartz was a great success; Goslar, Hartzburg, and many other beautiful and interesting spots were visited, including Quedlinburg on the way to Dessau, where a happy week was spent with the relations: the last time they were all to be together. The Max Mullers went on to Dresden, and saw many of their valued friends, and from there Max Muller went to Berlin for the fifth Oriental Congress, and his wife and children returned to England.
To B. Malabari, Esq.
September 4.
‘I am deeply interested in the effect which my Hibbert Lectures will produce in India. When writing them I was often thinking of my friends in your country more than of my audience at Westminster. The views which I have put forward in these lectures on the origin and on the true nature, character, and value of religion, are the only possible solution of the difficulties which trouble you, or at least all who are honest among you, and which trouble us in Europe. Do not suppose that I say this from any selfish motive. Truth is not mine nor yours: we can only bear witness to it, we cannot make it. All I may truly say of myself is, that I have devoted my whole life to the study of religion and religions, and that the views put forward in my Hibbert Lectures are the result of the studies which have not ignored any one of the objections raised against religion whether in England or in India. We must look for that religion which is at the root of all religions, and of which every historical religion is but an imperfect expression. If we once understand why every expression was imperfect, we shall have to bear with every religion — we shall look in each for that with which we can agree, and leave the rest to Brahmans, Dasturs, and Popes. There is no religion which does not contain some truth, none which contains the whole truth — for religion is the light of truth as reflected in human mirrors— and however pure and spotless your mirror may be, there is none which in reflecting does not deflect the rays of light that fall on it. The first duty which every student of religion has to perform is to make himself acquainted with the books on which each religion claims to be founded. Hence my publication of the Sacred Books of the East, i.e. of the world, for all religions come from the East.’
Max Muller was a delegate to the Congress from the University of Oxford, and, as such, delivered an address at the opening meeting, in which he dwelt on the services rendered by Oxford to Oriental learning in the publication of the Sacred Books of the East and the Anecdota Oxoniensia.
The next day Max Muller gave a detailed account of how he had discovered some Sanskrit texts, hitherto unknown, in Japan, and he showed the fine facsimiles that had been sent him. Professor Weber congratulated Max on his discovery, and, in an able speech, dealt with its great importance for Sanskrit studies.
But much as he enjoyed the Congress, all Max Muller’s letters from Berlin are full of expressions of fatigue and his longing for rest. ‘You don’t know what a beehive it is, not to say wasp-hive!’ As much time as he could spare was given to his old friend of early days at Bunsen’s, Karl Meyer, who was very ill. They never met again. Lepsius, too, who was to have been president of the Congress, was too ill to take any part in it.
His two Japanese pupils, who had met him at Berlin, accompanied him to Paris. From there he writes, on September 19, to his wife: —
‘This place is full of memories, and I walk about often as in a dream—so many gone, so many almost forgotten, till some little thing brings them back to one's memory. It was a hard struggle I had to go through here, and with no definite prospects, risking all on one card. I passed the spot where I remember saying to Schlotzer (it must have been in 1846), “Two things I must get, to be a Member of the French Institute (1869) like Humboldt, and to be a Knight of the Order pour le Merite” (1874). He shouted! Well, I got both, and he will soon be Prussian Minister at Rome, where Bunsen was. Thus goes the world. But the dream of a reality is often happier than the reality of a dream.’
On September 23 Max Muller took his seat as a Foreign Member of the French Institute, to which he had been elected twelve years before, but his friends had not thought it wise for him to attempt it sooner — the feeling was so strong against all Germans, and even now there was a decided attempt to make it uncomfortable for him; those who had not known him in old days talking loudly when he began his address; but after a time his perfect self-possession, and the interest of his subject (the discovery of the Sanskrit texts in Japan), had their effect. Unfortunately, most of his old friends, who would have given him a cordial reception, were still in the country.
He wrote to his mother: —
Translation. Paris, September 27.
‘Last Friday I took my seat as a Foreign Member of the French Institute. There was much speechifying, and I had to read a long paper in French about the Sanskrit MSS. which I got from Japan. The Japs were there, and, when I mentioned their names, bowed and smiled. All seems to have gone off well. I was elected in 1869, hut had never taken my seat. There are only eight Foreign Members.’
To His Wife.
Paris, September 30.
‘My address in the Academy was no joke: since Humboldt no German has spoken there. How different is everything now to 1846, and how many are no longer here! I have seen my old lodging. It is wonderful how well all has gone with me. I began with nothing, and yet have accomplished something. That is the great thing, that one feels one has brought the world a step onwards, finished a little raw work, and carried through a few new ideas. Now may others carry the work still further.'
On his return to Oxford, Max Muller found a letter awaiting him from the Dean of Christ Church, asking if he could be persuaded to offer himself as a candidate for the vacant Bodley Librarianship. It needed little consideration for him to decline such a post. It would have taken all his time, and the great work on which he was embarked, the Sacred Books of the East, must have been abandoned. He felt the same about the Wardenship of All Souls, for which some of his friends urged him to stand, and which became vacant this year, by the death of his relative. Dr. Leighton.
Max Muller was appointed a Curator of the Bodleian for the second time towards the close of this year.
To Dr. Tylor.
November 7.
'No, the Wacht am Rhein [Google translate: Watch on the Rhine] was not my father’s; it is of later date. The poet seems to have been little known, but he received, I believe, some pension from Government before he died. I believe his name was Muller, if that is a gnaman, I wish you would stand for the Bodleian Librarianship, or for part of Rolleston’s Professorship.’
On November 9 Max Muller received an invitation from Cambridge to deliver a set of lectures there in the next Lent Term on some Indian subject, with special view to the Indian Civil Service students. The invitation was accepted, and was the origin of the seven lectures India — What can it teach us?
From the time of his return from Paris Max Muller had been printing his translation of Kant, which he had finished in the summer. Many of his friends wondered at his 'wasting his time on a mere translation.’ He has fully answered their objections in the noble preface to the translation, where also he mentions his own indebtedness to Kant: —
‘While I am looking at the last lines I have written, it may be the last lines that I shall ever write on Kant, the same feeling comes over me which I expressed in the preface to the last volume of my edition of the Rig-veda and its ancient Commentary. I feel as if an old friend, with whom I have had many communings during the sunny and during the dark days of life, was taken from me, and I should hear his voice no more. The two friends, the Rig-veda and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, may seem very different, and yet my life would have been incomplete without the one, as without the other. The bridge of thoughts and sighs that spans the whole history of the Aryan world has its first arch in the Vedas, its last in Kant’s Critique. While in the Veda we may study the childhood, we may study in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason the perfect manhood of the Aryan mind.’
A second edition of Max Muller’s translation was called for, and was brought out in 1896, with the help of Dr. Adickes, who not only gave Max the benefit of all the important new readings and emendations which he was incorporating into his own standard edition, but also pointed out passages where he felt the exact meaning of Kant’s ambiguous style had not been correctly rendered.
To Professor Tyndall.
Oxford, December 19.
'I have received an invitation to attend a meeting of the Carlyle Monument Committee on the 22nd. It is almost impossible for me to go to London, nor do I think that I can be of much use. But I am quite decided on one point — we must not allow ourselves to be beaten. If you meet a flock of geese chattering and hissing, the only thing to be done is to walk straight through them. What you have to consider therefore, if there is still a deficiency, is whether some of us should go to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and collect, or whether we should appeal to Germany and America.
'Secondly, we ought to find out for how little a good bronze statue can be produced. I spoke to a first-rate artist at Dresden, who has put up several colossal statues in bronze (he is married to an Englishwoman), and I understood him to say that it could be done for £1,300. Will Mr. Boehm do it for that, and, if not, are we bound to him, and cannot we apply to anybody else?
‘I am full of work just now — five proof-sheets a day. However, I hope Kant will be out in January, and then I shall be free again. Just now I feel like a tunnel with three or four trains rushing and foaming against each other.’
In his Christmas letter to his mother he shows how much his work often weighed upon him. ‘We march forwards as long as we can, and when at last "Halt!” is called, we are glad to rest!'
All through the early months of 1883 Max Muller was busy preparing for his lectures on ‘India’ for Cambridge. Two of them were also to be given at Birmingham, at the Midland Institute.
As a New Year’s gift a beautiful paper was sent to him, Leaders of Modern Thought — F. Max Muller, giving an account of his life and works, and the spirit that had influenced those works. Some notable extracts follow: —
'We all, as Max Muller has well said, make for ourselves a life-plan; we all belong to an army, and carry a war-plan in our heads, which decides and guides us in the choice of our own march. Here is a scholar who belongs to the noble army of those who fight for the conquest of truth in the battle-field of man’s spiritual being, and when he asks himself, what is the right, or at least the most fruitful method in the study of man, he soon becomes convinced that, in order to know what man is, we must, before all things, consider what man has hem and how he has become what he is. And what has made the poet’s son the pride of those in England and Germany who say with Pope, The proper study of mankind is man”? It is his ‘‘godly enthusiasm,” the deep, poetic glow, that "infinite susceptivity,” and, above all, unflinching loyalty to truth which pervade all his work, and which carry us away with an irresistible charm, so that he has become a veritable [x]!'
After a sketch of Muller’s life, the article ends thus: —
'Many are the roads along which the nations have passed on their march to the City of God, and it is to surveying and mapping them out that this great leader of modern thought is devoting the rest of his life, which, let us hope, may be a long one. “To watch the dawn of religious consciousness in mankind must always remain one of the most inspiring and hallowing sights in the whole history of the world; and he whose heart cannot quiver with the first quivering rays of human thought and human faith is unfitted for the study.” Yes, brave heart, noble and beautiful words: work on, and God be with thee!
‘To him who, on a memorable occasion, asked in stirring tones: “Hab’ich mich je in England als Fremden betrachtet1 [‘Have I ever felt myself a stranger in England?']?” let us ever say, No, and we hope you never will!’
Though adverse criticism moved him very little, discriminating appreciation of his work was a spur and incentive to his affectionate nature, and cheered him on through many a tough and dry bit of work, whilst each year the solemn feeling deepened that the time left him might be short, and there was ‘still so much to do.’ He writes in January to his wife:—
‘To delight in doing one’s work in life, that is what helps one on, though the road is sometimes very stiff and tiring — uphill rather it would seem than downhill, and yet downhill it is.’
To Mr. Nanjio.
January 1.
'I was very glad to have your wishes for the New Year, and the two Chinese poems, which I shall keep as a remembrance when you are gone. I hope the work you are doing will bear fruit by-and-by. Though we cannot understand how our deeds ripen, they certainly do ripen, and good work bears good fruit, and bad work bears bad fruit. That is a very old lesson, but there are few better lessons to learn and preach. I have been very busy of late, and have not been able to help you as much as I wished, but I hope we shall now begin again to work in good earnest.’
To B. Malabari, Esq.
Oxford, 29.
‘As I told you on a former occasion, my thoughts while writing these lectures [the Hibbert] were with the people of India. I wanted to tell those few at least whom I might hope to reach in English, what the true historical value of their ancient religion is, as looked upon, not from an exclusively European or Christian, but from an historical point of view. I wished to warn against two dangers, that of undervaluing or despising the ancient national religion, as is done so "often by your half-Europeanized youths, and that of overvaluing it, and interpreting it as it was never meant to be interpreted, of which you may see a painful instance in Dayananda Sarasvati’s labours on the Veda. Accept the Veda as an ancient historical document, containing thoughts in accordance with the character of an ancient and simple-minded race of men, and you will be able to admire it, and to retain some of it, particularly the teaching of the Upanishads, even in these modern days. But discover in it “steam-engines and electricity, and European philosophy and morality,” and you deprive it of its true character, you destroy its real value, and you break the historical continuity that ought to bind the present to the past Accept the past as a reality, study it and try to understand it, and you will then have less difficulty in finding the right way towards the future.
‘From letters I have received I know that my Hibbert Lectures have been read in India. In fact, one of the best reviews of them appeared in the Theistic Quarterly Review, published in Calcutta. It was written by Protap Chunder Mozoomdar. But the number of people born in India who can read English, though growing from year to year, is still small, and it was therefore a great satisfaction to me when I heard from you that there was a chance of my lectures being translated into some of the Indian languages.
‘Accept now my sincere thanks for all you have done, and for what you still mean to do.’
To Mr. Nanjio.
February 8.
‘I can assure you it has been a real pleasure to me to have had you and your friend Kasawara as my pupils. I must sometimes have seemed impatient to you, but you know that it was only due to my wishing you to get on more rapidly. I can quite believe that you found Sanskrit very difficult, but you have mastered it now so far, that if you had to leave Oxford, which I hope will not yet be for a while, you will be able to get on by yourself. I always hope that you have some great and useful work before you when you return to Japan. Every one of us must try in his own sphere to be a real Buddha, devoting his life to the good of other people. I know you will do that, and that the work which we have done together will bear some fruit, even after we are called away from this life.’
The following letter contains the first idea of a collected edition of Max Muller’s works, though it was many years before the idea was carried out, and the History of Sanskrit Literature was never written, if a new work was intended. Nor was a new edition of Ancient Sanskrit Literature published, Max Muller feeling he had not time to read up the books written on the subject since 1861.
To C. J. Longman, Esq.
February 9.
‘I wish very much to be guided by your advice as to a collected edition of my works. I am at work on a course of lectures on Ancient India, to be delivered at Birmingham and at Cambridge; they will grow into a book. And if life lasts I have a final book on the Logos, Language, and Reason, on the stocks, which will finish my work. Now you know best what is the right thing to do. The History of Sanskrit Literature will take me more than a year to prepare, so we might have the new edition of the Lectures at once, and the next volume in the autumn.'
About this time began the correspondence, extending over many years, with Mr. Horatio Hale of Ontario: unfortunately but few of the letters on either side have been preserved.
To Horatio Hale, Esq.
February 14.
'It is a great pleasure to me to receive your letter and your paper on Hiawatha) that paper is full of instructive hints, particularly as bearing on the state of so-called savages, before they are brought in contact with so-called civilized men. Such evidence is, from the nature of the case, very difficult to obtain, and therefore all the more valuable. To my mind the structure of such a language as the Mohawk is quite sufficient evidence that those who worked out such a work of art were powerful reasoners and accurate classifiers. But it was evidently not in language only that savages had achieved great things, but, as you show, in political organization also and in family laws. I often wonder that so few American scholars work at these Indian Antiquities, as if they were less interesting than Sanskrit or Hebrew, and I hope indeed that you will find time to arrange what you have collected for publication. In many respects savages were much wiser in arranging their passage through life than we are; our struggle for life has become far more savage than theirs was. Still it is very difficult to come to a clear conception of the ascending and descending scales of civilization, and the traces of the fallen angel and the rising ape are curiously mixed together. Language is the greatest puzzle; for if that is to be looked upon as the work of ascending monkeys, we get so near the edge of the glacial period that no gorilla could have lived, much less invented gerunds and supines.'
Early in March Max Muller delivered his two lectures before the Midland Institute at Birmingham, and then returned home to finish the course for Cambridge.
The following shows some of the difficulties with which Max Muller had to contend as editor of the Sacred Books of the East, The Manu was undertaken by Professor Buhler, and forms Vol. I of Series II = Vol. XXV.